Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-02-25

the Service of Christi Prosecutions by
the Church's Parasites, Both Protestant
and Catholic.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 6.-To-day was NOV
ing day in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, MS the
annual pew letting has just occurred, and
contains the two plans of pew rental and
free church. The rented pews this year
Welded IN advance on all previous years,
SO that the income will be about $4,000.
But about two thousand sittings are always
kept FREQ, SO that no II may complain that
he cannot worship here for lack of means.
This morning Professor Browne, the organ
list, rendered the first sonata in ID minor
by Ritter, and the congregation sang the
hymn:
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come.
The subject of the sermon was "Pillars
of Smoke" and the text was taken from
Solomon's Song, ill.,. 6: "Who is this that
cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of
smoker" DIR. Talmage said:
The architecture of the smoke is Won
drous, whether God with His finger curls it
into a cloud, or rounds it into a dome, or
points it in a spire, or spreads it in a wing,
or, as in the text, hoists it in q pillar.
Watch it winding up from the country
farm house in the early morning, showing
that the pastoral industries have begun; or
see it ascending from the chimneys of the
city, telling of the homes fed, the factories
turning out valuable fabric, the printing,
presses preparing book and newspaper, and
all the ten thousand wheels in motion. On
a clear day this vapor spoken of mounts
with such b%uoyancy, and spreads such a
delicateiv veil across the sky, and traces such
graceful lines of circle and semi-circle, and
waves and losses and sinks and scars and
~scatters with such affiuence of shape and
color and suggestiveness that if you have
never noticed it you are like q man who has
all his life livedin Paris, andnever seen the
Luxembourg, and all his life in Rome and
never seen the Vatican, and all his life in
Lockport and never seen niagara. Forty
four times the Bible speaks of the smoke,
and it is about time that somebody preach
es a sermon recognizing this strange, weird,
beautiful, elastic, charming, terrific, and
fascinating vapor. Across the Bible sky
floats the smoke of Sinai, the smoke Of
Sodom, the smoke of All, the smoke of the
pit, the smoke of the volcanic hills when
God touches them, and in my text the glo-
rious church of God coming up out Of the
wilderness like pillars of smoke.
In the first place, these pillars of smoke
in my text indicate the suffering the church
of God has endured. What do I mean by
the church? 1 mean not "a building, not o
sect, but those who in all ages and in all
lands. and of all beliefs, love God and are
trying to do right. For many centuries the
heavens have been black with the smoke of
martyrdom. If set side by side you could
girdle the earth with fires of persecution.
Rowland Taylor burned ut Hadleigh; Lati-
mer burned at Oxford; John Rogers burned
at Smithfeld; John Hooper burned at
Gloucester; John Huss burned at Con-
stance; Lawrence Saunders burned Mt Gov
entrys Joan of Arc burned at Rouen.
Protestants have sometimes pointed to the
Catholics as prosecutors, but both Protest
ant and Catholic have practiced infamous
cruelties. The Catholics, during the reign
of Henry, were by Protestants put to
the worst tortures, stripped of their cloth
ing, hoisted in the air by pulleys with
weights suspended from their feet, then
let down, and ears and eyes, nose
and tongue were amputated, and red
hot plates Of iron We're put against
the tenderest part of their bodies. George
Bancroft, the historian, says of the
State OF Maryland: "In the land which
Catholics had opened to Professionals mass
might not be said publicly; no Catholic
voice of persuasion; no Catholic might
teach the young. If a hayward child of a
Papist would but become an apostate the
law wrested for him from his parents q
share of their property. Such were the
methods adopted to prevent the growth of
popery." Speaking of Ireland, Bancroft,
the historian, says: "Such priests as were
permitted to reside in Ireland were re-
quired to be registered, and were kept like
prisoners at large within prescribed limits.
All Papists exercising ecclesiastical juris-
d%iction, all monks, friars and regular
priests, and all priests not then actually in
parishes and to be registered, were ban
ished from Ireland under pain of trans
portation, and, OF return, of being hanged,
drawn and quartered."
Catholicism as we'll as Professionalism has
had its martyrs. 1t does seem as if, when
any n sect got complete dom;nancy in
any land the devil of persecution and cru
city took possession of that sect. Then
see the Catholics after the Huguenots.
See the Gentiles after the Jews in lou
ralne, where q great pit was dug and fire
lighted at tho bottom of the pit, and one
hundred and sixty Jewish victims we're con.
sumed. See the Presbyterian Parliament
OF England, more tyrannical in their treat
ment of opponents than had been the Grim
inal courts. Persecution against the Bap-
fists by Pedo-B aptists. Persecution of the
Established Church against the Methods,
Church. Persecution against the Quakers.
Prosecutions against the Presbyterians.
Under Emperor Diocletian one hundred
and forty-four thousand Christians were
massacred and seven hundred thousand
more of them died from Punishment and
exposure. Witness the sutferings of the
Waldenses, of tue A~lbigenses, of the Nesto-
rians. Witness st. Bartholomew's massa.
Gre, Witness the Duke of Alva driving out
of life $4,000 Christians. Witness Herod
and Nero, and Decius, and Hildebrand
and T~orquemada, and Earl of Montfort
and Lord Claverhouse, who, when told tina,
he must give ccoun for his cruelties, said
81 have no need to account to man, and as
for God, l will take Him in my own hands,
Aired line runs through the church histor,
of nineteen hundred years-al line of blood
Not by the hundreds of thousands but b,
the millions must we count those slain fol
Christ's sake. No wonder John Milton pu,
the groans of the martyrs to an immortal
tune, writing:
Ayenge, Q Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.
The smoke of martyrs homes and mar.
tyrs' bodies if rolling up all at once would
have eclipsed the MONDAY sun and turned
the brightest day the world ever saw into q
mid M Dl NVNbO - ~l. Al-A ----